By Tim Binnall
A UFO museum in Argentina is less one Peruvian mummy's foot after authorities raided the attraction and recovered the appendage along with dozens of other antiquities. According to a local media report, the operation occurred on Wednesday morning when federal police and Interpol agents descended upon the Museo del Ovni located in the city of Victoria. The popular tourist attraction has reportedly been run out of the home of researcher Silvia Pérez Simondini since 2005 and features a fantastic facade depicting various aspects of the UFO phenomenon. Within the museum are a library, a presentation space, and an array of exhibits, including one that inexplicably featured a Peruvian mummy's foot.
Although the artifact (seen below) had undoubtedly been on display at the museum for years, its presence there apparently only recently came to the attention of officials at the Peruvian Embassy in Argentina. Upon learning about the mummy's foot, they alerted Argentine authorities to what they believed to be a violation of an agreement between the two countries wherein they protect against illegal trade of cultural and archaeological artifacts. A subsequent investigation led to a YouTube video showcasing the mummy's foot and, in turn, sparked the raid that unfolded on Wednesday morning at the UFO museum.
In addition to seizing the appendage, authorities recovered over 60 additional artifacts, such as pottery and fossils, suspected of having been illegally brought to Argentina from Peru or found within the country and wrongly kept by the museum's curator. To that end, Simondini indicated that she found the mummy's foot during a vacation to Lima long ago and attempted to turn it over to various museums until finally deciding to display it as part of her collection when no place agreed to receive it. Calling the raid "unpleasant," she went on to lament that "they took a lot of pieces that are things that are found here in Victoria on the coast." It is uncertain if Simondini will face any criminal charges for possessing the allegedly ill-gotten artifacts.